Staff

Janson Wu

Executive Director

Janson Wu has served as GLAD’s executive director since December 2014, following nine years as a staff attorney.

During his time at GLAD, Janson has been deeply involved in the breadth of GLAD’s work, including the rights of LGBT elders, marriage and family law, employment benefits, and transgender rights. He served on the legal teams for GLAD’s two federal challenges to DOMA, GLAD’s class action suit against Walmart, and the successful asylum case of Ugandan activist John Abdallah Wambere. In 2012, in In re Madelyn B, Janson successfully argued before New Hampshire’s highest court that a non-biological lesbian mother should be recognized as a parent.

Janson has also worked extensively on legislation and policy, leading GLAD’s coalition efforts to pass marriage equality in New Hampshire and Rhode Island, and to advance transgender nondiscrimination protections in New Hampshire. He currently leads GLAD’s coalition work to protect Massachusetts’ transgender public accommodation nondiscrimination law at the ballot.

Prior to GLAD, Janson worked as an attorney with the anti-poverty organization Tri-City Community Action Program, and as an associate at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan. Janson has served on the ABA’s Commission on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity and the Legal Committee of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health. He currently serves on the Advisory Board of History UnErased, Inc.

Janson Wu is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School. He was a 21st Century Fellow with the Pipeline Project, a program dedicated to cultivating leadership among LGBT people of color.